Farmers expecting robust apple crop

Sunday

Sep 8, 2013 at 12:01 AMSep 8, 2013 at 8:04 AM

Agriculture officials and apple growers said this week that they are looking forward to a blockbuster fall and said customers have already been streaming in to pluck the season’s first apples off the trees.

Kendall Hatch/Daily News staff

Agriculture officials and apple growers said this week that they are looking forward to a blockbuster fall and said customers have already been streaming in to pluck the season’s first apples off the trees.

The state Department of Agricultural Resources last week reported that this year’s apple crop is looking to be plentiful, with some growers reporting that their fruits are bigger than normal this year.

Apple growers across the nation are celebrating good crops this year, especially in some areas like New York and Michigan, where farmers reported dismal yields in 2012.

Local growers said they made out alright last year, but said this year is tracking to be even better.

"It wasn’t dismal here last year," said Phyllis Tougas, owner at the Tougas Family Farm in Northborough, "but this year, we have an even better crop."

Tougas said a rainy June put the water in the soil that allows the apples to size up nicely, and said the heat in July and more seasonal temperatures in August allowed the crop of fruit to come in nicely.

Tougas said the farm is already seeing a steady flow of customers looking to come to the orchard to pick their own early season apples.

Charlie Koshivas, owner at the Fairmount Fruit Farm in Franklin, said last year was tough on the apples but said the farm is seeing much better results this year.

"It looks like double the crop we had last year and they’re sizing up good, so you can’t complain," he said.

Koshivas said unseasonably warm temperatures early last spring followed by a late frost took its toll on last year’s yield.

"This year, we didn’t have any frost, plenty of rain, so I think we’ll be in good shape for the most part," he said.

John Burns, manager of the Belkin Family Lookout Farm in South Natick, said the farm is on track to have a "better than normal" year. He said that this year’s peach yield was up 20 percent, which bodes well for the apple crop.

"We had a very, very rainy June, which is very good for the fruit trees," he said. "It gets the root system off on the right foot."

Burns said the hot weather in July forced him to use the farm’s irrigation system to water the trees more often than he perhaps would normally, but said the fruit came out fine.

According to the Department of Agricultural Resources, the state has about 369 apple farms. In a phone interview last week, MDAR Commissioner Greg Watson said people looking to pick their own apples won’t find a much better time of the year than now.

"They should definitely get out. It’s a good time to do it," he said. "This will be sort of a peak time to take advantage of it."